


Catharsis

by Aimanre



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Can also be read as platonic - Freeform, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s03e16 The Southern Raiders, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Ozai's A+ Parenting, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, everyone other than Katara and Zuko are just mentioned, nothing explicitly romantic happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:54:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27647120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aimanre/pseuds/Aimanre
Summary: Besieged by a storm after confronting Yon Rha, Katara and Zuko take refuge in a cave. There, they have a much-needed conversation: about mothers, monsters and mistakes.After all, a burden shared is a burden halved.(“She died for me, and I couldn’t even bring her justice! I left her ghost unavenged while her killer roams free. He gets to buy fruits and take walks and complain about his mom, while mine rots away under fifty feet of ice! Just say it!”There was no trace of confrontation in him, though. He was sitting in the saddle with his knees pulled up, watching her evenly as rain water dripped down his face. )
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 87





	Catharsis

**Author's Note:**

> My first Zutara fic, would appreciate feedback!

“Spit it out already!” snapped Katara, unable to take it any longer.

She was looking ahead, so she didn’t catch his expression; but she heard him startle and croak “What?” from behind her. As if he hadn’t spent the last two hours staring at her back.

“You’ve been boring holes into my head since we took off, so just say whatever it is you want to say!” She snarled into the rain, voice cracking sharper than her waterwhip. Still, she did not turn around to face him. Beneath her reins, Appa rumbled softly. Katara was familiar enough in Appa-ese to interpret that he was tired. _Of course he’s tired,_ she thought, a fresh tendril of guilt rising up to join the yarn of emotions twisting in her chest, _I dragged him halfway across the world with barely any rest._ They should have touched down an hour ago to make camp for the night, but she’d been so desperate to put as much distance as possible between herself and that accursed man…

 _We will make camp at the next island we find,_ she decided. The rain didn’t show a sign of letting up and Appa didn’t deserve to get sick to placate her misery. Nor did Zuko. 

The stray thought jolted her back to reality, the silence underlined by the lack of his answer. She gritted her teeth as the last of her self-restraint broke. She wasn’t going to take his judgement lying down, no more than she took Aang’s.

“Well?” she prompted. “Did the cat-owl steal your tongue? Say it! You think I’m weak! You think I am a stupid peasant who couldn’t even kill her mother’s murderer!” Her voice grew hoarse as she yelled, until she wasn’t even sure whose thoughts she was trying to articulate anymore. “She died for me, and I couldn’t even bring her justice! I left her ghost unavenged while her killer roams free. He gets to buy fruits and take walks and complain about his mom, while mine rots away under fifty feet of ice! Just say it!”

She turned around to face Zuko then, hoping the rain would veil the tears in her eyes, levelling him with all the ferocity she had left. Daring him to judge her.

There was no trace of confrontation in him, though. He was sitting in the saddle with his knees pulled up, watching her evenly as rain water dripped down his face. His eyes still held the painful empathy that had pulled her in, back in the crystal catacombs. An anguished gentleness in them that screamed _I’m sorry you are in pain._ Later, she’d told herself it had just been a part of his act, and had tried to keep reminding herself of that since he’d joined them a few weeks ago.

“Actually, uh, I was thinking that you look like you’re freezing,” he rasped slowly, softly. The way she’d heard him speak to an injured fox-kitten last week. His hands twitched towards her in an aborted movement, as if he’d wanted to offer to warm her up before thinking better of it. “We should probably land and find some shelter now. In case it turns into a storm. I could build us a fire to warm Appa up before it comes to that.”

“I know that!” she snapped, immediately regretting it as her temper fizzled out its short-lived burst. Part of her wished he’d just taken the bait and snapped back at her; it would have been so much easier to fight him, so much simpler to anchor herself in anger than let herself drown in _everything else_. Now, a new string of guilt and shame curled in her chest, abashed by her treatment of Zuko. She tried to shake away her errant thoughts and focused on finding somewhere hospitable to land on. Her fatigued eyes cast about feverishly as she directed Appa downwards, the rain had gotten too thick to see through from too high up.

They passed a couple of wretched-looking islands, too shorn and windblown to offer them any shelter. Rain drummed down harder as black clouds amassed overhead, warning them of imminent lightning. Katara could feel Appa floating dangerously lower as the night set in, close to skimming the surface of the ocean, a sure-sign of how weary he was. She was just considering using waterbending to propel them forward when Zuko exclaimed, “There!”

She turned to see what he was pointing at. A little ways to the east, there was a promising island with lots of huge trees, all sloping up a…

“Is that a volcano?” she asked, dubiously. Being from the south pole, Katara would never understand the Fire Nation’s obsession with living on natural time-bombs. She’d rather live on a dependable sleet of ice, thank you very much.

“Yes. We must have skirted around the Hothram Bay, I think we’re following the Bow of Brahma now,” he said. He seemed to notice her trepidation and clarified, “It’s a line of islands with extinct volcanoes. Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s perfectly safe.”

“Well, if you’re _sure_ ,” she said, only half-sarcastically. She nudged Appa to turn around so they could make a beeline for the island. When they reached the place, they circled around it to find a suitable shelter. Overhead, Katara could hear thunder start to crack ominously and she cursed their luck. If only they could build their own shelter.

“Of all the times to be missing our resident earthbender, huh?” Zuko commented, quietly.

A tired smile crept onto her face. “Don’t let her hear you say that,” Katara cautioned. “We’ll never hear the end of how earth is the greatest element.”

They chuckled, all too easily picturing Toph rubbing it in their faces for days.

Finally, they found a cave big enough to stash Appa. As Zuko guided Appa into the cave and began unpacking, Katara summoned the rain water to slash at a few branches until they afforded some cover to the mouth of the cave. The last thing they needed was the storm-winds blowing rain into their shelter. _I wish Momo had come along,_ she thought, his chatter somehow always brightened the gloomiest of things. By the time she’d crafted a satisfactory shield and moved into the cave, a fire was crackling merrily away in a pit, and Appa had collapsed happily onto his stomach. To her relief, Zuko seemed to already have set a pot boiling on the fire, the smell of cooking food made her stomach rumble audibly.

Zuko looked up at that, he’d removed the black stealth robe and was seated against the cave wall in his usual Fire Nation tunic, soaked to the bone. She bent the water out of both their clothes and Appa’s coat before Zuko got the chance to mention her hunger. She’d had enough experience with concerned Zuko in the past couple of days to surmise that he could be a bit of a grumbly mother hen. 

“I hope you didn’t set the fire too hot like last time.” She commented as she removed her own stealth robe and threw it on top of Appa, too tired to climb up and pack it properly. She collapsed to the ground, leaning back on Appa’s downy paw, hyperaware of the fatigue of the past few days crashing down on her. She hoped Zuko was prepared to dole out the food, because there was no way she was getting up again tonight.

“For the last time, that was Sokka’s idea!” Zuko huffed as he stirred the pot. “He put it very logically! Twenty minutes of medium fire for the rice to cook, so five minutes of extremely hot fire to cook it faster.”

“And _that_ is why Sokka is never on kitchen duty.”

His brows scrunched up, “Then why is he never on hunting duty?”

“Because no one wants a repeat of the sabre-tooth moose lion incident,” she pointed out, sensibly. When his face remained puzzled, she realized, “No way. Has no one told you the story of Foo-Foo cuddly poops yet?”

“Fufu-what?”

The warmth of the memory pierced through her unrest like sunlight parting storm clouds, rejuvenating her. She launched into the story, recreating the scene with all its colourful details. By the time Zuko served up two bowls of steaming stew, she was so engrossed that she even included all the implausible details Sokka had taken to embellishing the story with.

No matter what Sokka said, Katara refused to believe that his friendship with Foo-Foo cuddly poops had been the key to defeating the mother sabre-tooth moose-lion. Sokka had taken to insisting that his brave friend had stood between him and his mother, and had refused to move from her warpath to protect Sokka. Apparently, the strength of their friendship had moved the mother so much that she bowed to Sokka before leaving with her tail between her legs. Since Katara hadn’t actually been there, she couldn’t refute it; unfortunately, Aang and Toph had too much fun egging Sokka’s ridiculous tales on to contradict him. The traitors.

“…Then he said that I was just jealous of his _friendship-bending_.” She concluded, setting aside her empty bowl.

“Friendship-bending!” Zuko snorted, putting the utensils away. “Well, maybe I should count myself lucky he only challenged me to a _Swordbending Kai_ instead, now that I see there were far worse alternatives.”

“Oh, I would’ve killed to see you in a Friendship-bending Kai,” Katara grinned. “You would’ve killed it with your ‘ _Hello! Zuko here!’_ ”

He made a token protesting sound before joining in her mirth. The cave rang with their laughter, and for a moment, the storm felt like a faraway nightmare.

 _He has a nice laugh,_ Katara thought, as her transient joy gave way to something more sombre. She couldn’t remember ever hearing it before. The laughter smoothed away the harshness of his face, making him look unbearably young. _He’s only sixteen,_ _only two years older than me._ Zuko had always seemed so much older though, clad in bulky Fire Nation armour and leading a bunch of grown soldiers, he’d seemed a formidable enemy. Nothing like a lost boy. At least, not until Ba Sing Se.

“I’m sorry,” she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she’d even thought them through, abruptly veering the lightness of their conversation into something far more tremulous. She felt a twinge of regret for dampening the mood but forged on to clarify, “For snapping at you before.” She could feel phantom words echo from another cave and another time, “ _I’m sorry for yelling at you before.”_

“It’s okay,” Zuko rasped, the rare happiness evaporating from his face instantly, leaving behind only subdued melancholy. And it was the same, it was Ba Sing Se all over again, and Katara didn’t know which way was right anymore. Suddenly, she couldn’t take it any longer, the rhino-elephant in the room had to be addressed. She’d blamed him, avoided him and threatened him. Nothing had worked. The only option left now was to talk to him. No more running away.

“Why did you do it?” she asked, voice pitched low, eyes locked on his. The air gained a heaviness as they considered each other over the fire, the half-light layering on a strange impression of intimacy. Appa was snoring just behind her, but he might as well have been on the moon for all the thought she spared him right now. They were in their own bubble, she and Zuko, in a reality removed from the rest of the world.

A rawness was flickering in Zuko’s gaze as firelight played on his face, shadowing his scar. He was frowning in a way that said that he was considering her question carefully. His throat bobbed before he finally answered, voice equally low. “Because… because I wanted to go home.” There was real anguish in him now, eyes burning like embers, but he still didn’t look away. “Because I let Azula fool me into thinking they wanted me. That I had a chance to… to have a family again.”

Katara didn’t know what to say to that. What could anyone say to that? As much as she’d tried to tamp down the connection she’d formed with Zuko, as much as she’d tried to wipe Ba Sing Se from her memory, there had always been snippets of their conversation that had flitted into her head at the most inopportune moments. The pieces of a puzzle she didn’t want to connect, because it was so much easier to lump all their enemies into one category than to try discerning all the invisible lines separating monsters from victims.

_‘The mark of a banished prince cursed to chase the Avatar forever’_

_‘That’s something we have in common’_

She thought of Yon Rha, pleading at her feet hours ago. She thought of Zuko, not brushing aside her turmoil like everyone else had always done, thought of his unwavering support and unjudgmental words in the past few days. ‘ _She needs this, Aang!’_ He’d insisted. He’d understood.

“I really was ready to kill him, you know.” Katara whispered, the words flowing out like poison drawn out of a wound. “When you come from a dwindling tribe at the edge of the world, death is no stranger to you. You learn early on that sometimes the best way – the only way- to ensure the survival of your family is to take down your enemy before they can take you down.” She swallowed, wishing her voice would lose its hoarseness. “That’s why Dad left after all. Even in battles, I’ve gone in ready to kill before. We are fighting a war, I’m not naïve enough to think it can be done without death. I will be prepared to kill in the future when we face…”

“My father,” Zuko agreed, lips quirking in a valiant attempt at a smile. “Believe me, I know.”

“Right,” she said. The solemn manner in which he was watching her, the way he seemed to be giving immense weight to her words, that was the only thing prompting her to go on, to let the yarn unravel in her chest. To give air to the years-long darkness festering inside her. “Since my mother’s death, Yon Rha had been the ultimate enemy in my head, even worse than Ozai. Because, what kind of monster takes a mother away from her child? How could he have looked me in the eyes knowing what he was about to do?”

She turned to glare into the fire, hating the red and gold swirling mockingly in it. The old anger burned in her, lending strength to her voice. “What’s more, a man like that, if he could do that once, he could do that a hundred times. It’s not like he would face any justice. The Water Tribes weren’t strong enough to make him answer, the Fire Nation wouldn’t bother. He’d pillage and murder and tear families apart and go home to laugh about it.” Her hands were trembling almost uncontrollably now, unable to bear the force of the emotions wracking her in a merciless tide, she clenched them into fists in a vain attempt to cease the reaction. “He’d killed her like she was some- some fly to slap away, he’d barely given a thought to her death. And there was _nothing_ we could do, nothing! Nothing but try to pick up pieces from the ashes and try to rebuild some semblance of normality again. I-I tried my best to step into her shoes, told myself there was nothing we could do. But for the first time, there _was_ something we could do; something _I_ could do and I didn’t! I didn’t do it!”

There it was, the crux of it. The guilt, the indecision and the injustice. Why did this have to be on her? What sort of world was this where children turning into killers was the only chance at justice? What sort of alternative was it to condone the _crimes_ of a murderer and ask for the victims to take the burden of forgiving onto themselves? Even worse, in the end, Katara couldn’t do either, she couldn’t kill _or_ forgive. A fat load of nothing was all she did.

And suddenly, he was there. Warm hands over hers, gently prying her fingers from where they’d been biting crescent-shaped indentations into her palms. She didn’t resist the touch, watching through a haze of unshed tears as his hands smooth her fingers out. When he was done, he rested his palms on top of her open ones, a silent invitation for her to decide.

She accepted the quiet comfort, curling her hands around his, holding on tight as she looked up at him again. There was nothing mocking about the gold of his eyes or the red of his scar. They reminded her of the fires they all huddled around during the peaks of winter, the fire that meant life and warmth. His voice rang with soft succour when he quietly asked, “Then why didn’t you?”

If there had been even a shred of accusation in those words, she would’ve shoved him away and retreated into her shell, but the only thing there was an earnest plea to understand, to help. So she frowned, trying to give words to the tumult of emotions that had raged in her as she’d hurled a hundred ice daggers at Yon Rha. “Because he was pathetic. Because he wasn’t the unbeatable monster that I’d pictured in my childhood.” She tightened her grip on Zuko’s hands, _needing_ him to understand, needing to be understood, and was glad to find that he was holding her just as tightly. They were adrift in a sea of isolation, moored only to each other. “He wasn’t a threat, it took less than nothing to beat him. He wasn’t going around tearing other families apart, he was a wretched empty man living out his retirement. He was a cruel, sad and uncaring monster, but he wasn’t a beast that anyone had to worry about anymore.”

Dimly, she was aware that she was holding on too tight but she couldn’t bring herself to loosen her hold, not when it was the only thing keeping her together. Not when, in a corner of her mind, Hama was laughing. “If I’d killed him today, it wouldn’t have been to help anyone else, to spare anyone else, it would have been only for me… only for my pleasure, my satisfaction.” 

She thought of the man she’d bloodbended on the ship, and wondered if Zuko was thinking of that too. There was something unreadable flickering in his eyes, some strange realization breaking on his face. She barged on, anxious to get it all out before she lost her chance, “He’d already ruined so much, he didn’t get to- I couldn’t bear to-”

“You couldn’t let him ruin you too,” Zuko finished. His eyes were wide with comprehension now, “You were afraid you would be killing him for the wrong reasons, you were afraid what that said about you. He already took so much from you, twisted so much of you, you couldn’t let him corrupt what was left. Couldn’t let him change _who you are_.”

There was something in the way he said it, a strange urgency in his eyes that spoke of an unfathomable camaraderie. “Yes,” she replied, quietly, “yes, that’s it. One way or another, if I’d done it while he was down, like that… well, it didn’t feel like it would be me winning.”

Hama’s grotesque grin danced behind her eyelids, a spectre that crowed _We aren’t so different after all._ Katara wished she could carve the memory out of her flesh.

“Katara,” Zuko said, fiercely. He pulled his hands free of hers and clasped them onto her shoulders instead, leaning forward to look intently into her eyes. Everything about him blazed conviction, and Hama’s shadow melted away like summer snows in the face of him. “You did _nothing_ wrong. The reason I told you about the Southern Raiders was so that you would get the chance, the choice, to resolve that pain, that grief. To do it on your own terms. To do whatever was best for you. And you _did!_ You neither excused his crimes nor did you torment him. You had your worst enemy on his knees in front of you and you acted with honour, how could you possibly be wrong?”

“But I don’t _feel_ right,” she protested. Aang always said that when you did the right thing, you could feel it. All she felt was a maelstrom of confusion.

“Sometimes, there is no _one_ right answer,” Zuko breathed, the warmth of it fanned across her face. “There are only bad options or worse options. Trust me, I know all about those.” He gave another brave attempt at a smile.

And suddenly, it clicked, the strange camaraderie resonating in their conversation. ‘ _That’s something we have in common’._ “Do you, Zuko? Know about this?” she asked. She wet her lips, trying to formulate the question, “Did you, I mean..”

He went very still. Katara couldn’t bring herself to finish the question, it should be his choice, his decision to bring her into the fold. Because if what she thought was true, if he’d truly faced his mother’s killer, then surely, he deserved to have the topic be treated with the same respect. His throat bobbed and he rasped, “I-uh-it wasn’t really the same.”

Zuko was pulling back from her, dropping his hands from her shoulders, and no, the distance was the last thing she wanted. She pitched forward, stopping his retreat, curling her hands over the insides of his elbows. She held him in place and looked at him as intently as he’d looked at her before, trying to convey the same plea, “Don’t go.”

“Katara..” he exhaled, something fragile in his eyes.

“What happened, Zuko?” she asked, because someone needed to ask. Had anyone asked Zuko how he’d ended up joining them? _The Fire Nation took my mother away from me/That’s something we have in common._ The implications were staggering, and she could no longer pretend she didn’t see them. “You met your mother’s killer?”

Zuko’s eyes glistened and she saw a muscle twitch in his jaw. “She wasn’t killed,” he whispered. His breath grew ragged in a way it never did, not when he controlled it like he did. “She wasn’t- she never died. They just never told me that, all these years and he- they let me think she was dead. She’s alive, she was banished.”

 _Banished,_ she thought, overwhelmed as the final puzzle piece slotted into place. Because who could banish a queen, if not, if not-

“Who banished her? Who lied to you?”

His hands were back on her, mimicking her hold, gripping tight onto her arms as she did to his. “Father,” he revealed, in a pained breath, and _oh,_ “It was father, always father. He was- he did this to us, all of us. He sent her away because she tried to protect me. Because he wanted to kill me.”

Horror choked Katara, she was rendered speechless in the face of _this_ , this harrowing reveal that the apex of the Fire Nation was worse, much worse than she’d ever imagined, could ever imagine. “He wanted to _kill_ you? You are his son! What- Zuko, how old were you even?”

He laughed like the question was absurd, an unhinged tinge to the sound, “I was ten, Katara. I was ten when grandfather ordered father to kill me. Ten when mom sacrificed herself to save me, and I didn’t even know, didn’t even believe Azula when she told me. Should’ve known she wasn’t lying, she was happy after all. Spirits, I was so stupid!”

 _Ten,_ she thought, aghast, _no older than Sokka was when mom died. When we stepped up for each other._ Who had Zuko had? Azula? A family that seemed to treat Zuko’s life as a game at best and an obstacle at worst? She tried to imagine Gran-Gran ordering Dad to kill her, imagined Dad agreeing, imagined Sokka gloating about it. Even in imagination, it was so far beyond the realm of possibility that it was laughable. How could anyone have survived a life like that? “And you.. confronted him? Like I did Yon Rha?”

“I was nowhere as successful at beating him, obviously,” Zuko admitted, sounding like the words were being dragged out of him. She squeezed his arms, silently urging him to go on, “I-It was the day of the black sun, I went in with my swords when he couldn’t bend. I needed to face him, you see. I needed that closure, after everything.” His voice had grown even hoarser, even raspier than usual, it sounded painful. A part of her itched to heal it, to sooth away at least _some_ hurt of his. “I told myself I wouldn’t try to end him, that was the Avatar’s destiny, not mine. But really, all I could think was that that was exactly what he and Azula would do. Plotting for someone to be at their weakest before attacking them? That’s what they always do. And if I did the same, well- they already twisted so much of me that I don’t even know who I am anymore half the time… I couldn’t bear to let them sink in more.” He grimaced, “I told him I wouldn’t kill him, didn’t go over very well. He laughed in my face, taunted me with mom and threw lightning at me.”

This conversation was one hit after another. Her eyes burned and she tried to speak around the lump in her throat. “Zuko…”

“I’d wondered since then, whether I’d done the right thing. I’m still new to this, you know, I’m kinda bad at being good, you of all people know that,” he said, with a self-depreciating quirk of his mouth. “I’d wondered whether it was anything other than my own cowardice that had made me hold back. And… thank you Katara, thanks to you, I’m not, I’m not wondering anymore.”

That was beyond absurd. After everything, after all this, she couldn’t believe he had the audacity to say this. “No, Zuko, you… I’m the one who should be thanking you.” He grimaced a little disbelievingly, like he had at the campfire the other day when everyone had praised him. _I don’t deserve this,_ he’d said, did he really believe that?

The notion was horrific. As belligerent as she’d been towards him since he’d joined them, there was a part of her- the part that was the healer, the part that never turned her back on people who needed help- that couldn’t help but fixate on how reckless Zuko seemed to be with his own safety. Racing towards a fleet of enemy airships, falling into a ravine, leaping over a lake of boiling water… If he’d been Sokka or Aang or Toph, she’d have given him an earful about his self-destructive idiocies already. As it was, Katara had told herself it was no business of hers what bull-headed backstabbers chose to do with their lives, and had tried to turn a blind-eye to his antics. Now though, with the backdrop set and all boundaries dropping rapidly, the concern ballooned in her. 

“Zuko, you know your father was wrong right?” she questioned. “Not just about the war, but about you. You were a child and you deserved better. You _deserve_ better.”

“I know,” he agreed. “It took me a long while to understand that properly, but my father was wrong. What my father did wasn’t justice, it was cruel and it was wrong.” He said it like it was a recent epiphany, a mantra he was repeating to himself. That broke her heart even more, had he thought the way he’d been treated was _justice_ before? 

“It is beyond cruel and wrong,” Katara reiterated, angrily. “It’s horrendous and monstrous-”

“Because my father is a monster,” Zuko interjected, quietly. “He is exactly the kind of monster you pictured, the kind that tears families apart and takes a mother away from her child.” _Even his own._ “And the thing I learnt about monsters Katara, is that we owe them _nothing_. We don’t owe them our forgiveness or our mercy or even our vengeance. They don’t deserve a single thought of ours. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have spared Yon Rha a single thought if you really had killed him, Agni knows he would have deserved it. I only wanted you to choose what was right for _yourself_ , whatever got _you_ closure. And your choice was to spare him, then that was that, you don’t _owe_ him vengeance. You shouldn’t feel like you have to do anything that you don’t want to. He doesn’t deserve to have that kind of power.”

Tears tracked down her cheeks, “But was it right for my mother?”

“Katara,” Zuko murmured, looking pained by the sight of her tears. That was the straw that broke the camel-chicken’s back, she tipped forward into his chest, desperate for comfort. His arms came around her, drawing her into a warm cocoon as his chin rested atop her head. It made her feel safe and that somehow ramped up the crying, she was sobbing into his tunic now. “My mother used to tell me that above everything else, she wanted me to be true to myself. That mattered more to her than what I could or could not do. And from everything you’ve told me about yours, I doubt she would’ve thought any differently. She would have put your happiness over the fate of some wretched old man any day.” He rubbed soothing circles onto her back.

“Of course she would. She was the most selfless person I’ve ever known. She always put us first,” Katara wept, surrendering to the grief. “Always. And today, it turned out she put my life over hers, to protect me. And I-I didn’t even _know._ ”

“I know. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry it happened this way. Your mother was so brave, she deserved better. And so do you.” His arms tightened around her, until she was pressed up taut against the hard lines of his body, not an inch of space between them. The gesture was excruciatingly protective, it said _you can let go now,_ it said _I’ll hold you together if you fall apart._

So she did. She let the poorly-bottled grief break out of its confines, crashing over her with the force of a tsunami. Mourning all that she’d lost, all that she would never have, because mom would never see her grow up or teach her how to style her hair or dance at her wedding. She cried because the crow’s feet around Kya’s eyes would never crinkle again in laughter, nor would her ears turn red with anger. She cried for the childhood she’d lost, the years she had to spend without her mom’s warm cuddles and soft lullabies, without the blanket of safety offered by her arms. She cried for all the pieces of her mother that she didn’t remember, the pieces that were forever lost to time now. Because her mom was gone, _gone, gone._ And nothing in the world could change that. She could beat up or kill Yon Rha but what did that really matter if mom was still dead? It wouldn’t patch up the emptiness in her heart, the hollow of dead brush where flowers once grew. There was not a thing that could.

So she cried, because that was all she could do. And it felt like venting and purging. A catharsis long denied. Because all the layers of hatred and confusion and helplessness were pulled back now, laying bare only the raw, unyielding truth of her mother’s death. Like draining a wound of pus so it could finally heal, so she could finally heal.

And through it all, there was Zuko, firm and steady against her. Stroking her hair, squeezing her torso, shushing her gently. A haven of understanding and solace in the eye of the storm, warding off the worst of it; not letting go for a moment, even as the cave grew steadily darker.

So she wept and sobbed and grieved, secure in the knowledge that he’d keep her afloat.

It could have been minutes or hours before she’d cried herself out, she couldn’t tell, but her eyes felt pained and puffy. The fire had dwindled down to embers, and long shadows danced on the cave walls. The lightning flashing outside gave an occasional violet-tinged form to the shadows. She watched them wearily, head still tucked under Zuko’s chin, too tired to make a movement yet. _That one looks a little like Ingred the Thumbless Warrior,_ she thought sluggishly, half-focused on the reassuring beat of Zuko’s heart under her ear, _and that looks like a purple lion-giraffe. I wonder if I’d ever get to see one of those? Maybe we could go looking for one after the war._ She wished she could allow herself to drift to sleep like this, dreaming of folk-tales and faraway lands, with Zuko’s calloused thumb stroking the shell of her ear. Despite her best efforts though, reality was rapidly catching up to her, she was growing increasingly aware of the snot dripping from her nose and the mortifying realization that she’d probably gotten it all over his tunic.

So after counting a couple more heartbeats, she disengaged herself from him, scrubbing at her nose. “Sorry for, uh, that.”

“Don’t be,” he whispered. “I’m glad you- I’m glad I could help.” Katara was torn between wishing the fire was back so she could see his face, and relieved that it wasn’t because she was sure her own face was doing something embarrassing. “I wish I could do more.”

“It’s not your burden to carry, Zuko, I’m sorry that I made you feel like it was.” The pain of her mom’s death didn’t go away, and probably won’t for any time soon, but confronting Yon Rha had brought some degree of relief with it. She felt lighter than she had in years, freer. “You aren’t responsible for all the evils of the Fire Nation.” _Not when you were their victim too._

“Still,” Zuko forged on, “I promise if there’s anything I can do, I will. You know if we win the war, my uncle will probably be the Fire Lord. He’d agree that men like Yon Rha shouldn’t be let off without answering for their crimes. No honourable soldier can murder a woman in cold-blood like that, we could imprison him for war crimes.”

“You’d do that?” Katara asked, dumbfounded. The idea was too good to be true, that Yon Rha may face justice without her having to kill him. “Really?”

“Of course,” Zuko replied, squeezing her hand solemnly. “It’s a promise.”

She shouldn’t have been surprised, Zuko had proven himself to be surprisingly kind in unexpected ways.

“Thank you. That would mean everything to me,” she rasped, squeezing back. A stray thought struck her. “You know, after the war, I could help you look for your mother if you want?”

She could barely make out his face in the darkness, but it seemed to have been her turn to catch him off-guard. “You don’t have to do that, Katara.”

“I know. I want to.” She ran a thumb over the back of his hand. “It’s a promise.”

He choked out a broken laugh, “Okay, I’ll hold you to that then.” The implications of the pledge hovered in the air, tolling the end of their tentative truce and marking the start of something else, something deeper. Something which she couldn’t parse into words yet. 

Eventually, he turned to tend to the fire, bringing it back to life with a flick of his wrist. She unpacked their sleeping bags and began rolling hers out, spreading it parallelly beside Appa’s fluffy bulk for maximum comfort. Zuko came to heft his bag and moved to the other side of the cavern to roll it out. Of course he did. She’d thrown him nasty looks back in the Western Air Temple whenever he’d tried to sleep within a ten-foot radius of her. The distance felt unbearable now.

“You know, you were right earlier,” she blurted unthinkingly, panicking at the idea of a chasm reopening between them. At his questioning look, she continued, “I _am_ freezing. You should sleep over here so Appa and I won’t go cold. Put those heat-pack skills which Toph goes on about to use.” Katara flushed. Of all the excuses, she had to go with that? When there was a warm fire flickering a few feet away? She might as well have confessed the embarrassing truth! ( _I’d rather have you close)._

To his credit though, he didn’t call her out on the flimsy excuse. Instead, his face softened into a small, hopeful smile (it shouldn’t be legal for a boy to resemble a bright-eyed wolf-pup _this_ much) and he made his way back to her side. She directed him to roll his bag out beside hers. The arrangement left her sandwiched between Zuko and Appa’s rumbling flank, with his paws spread out above their heads and below their feet. It reminded her of the pillow forts Sokka would build her when they were little, surrounding her with pillows on all sides when she had nightmares, claiming that the pillows would protect her from any monster.

 _And I hurt him,_ Katara thought, shamefully, _and what’s worse, I did it on purpose._ She’d just felt so betrayed by Sokka, when he took Aang’s side even after Aang had compared her to _Jet,_ that she’d wanted to hurt him back, shooting back the most cutting words that had popped into her head. It was unworthy though, Sokka had just been looking out for her, as always. Besides, she couldn’t stand the idea of actually hurting Sokka, she hoped she’d be able to make up for it, hoped he’d accept her apology. _I’ll make him seal-jerky when we get back,_ Katara resolved, settling down on her bedspread, _I’ll even top it with mango jelly the way he likes, even though it’s a terrible combination and no sane person should be allowed to consume that._ The idea eased her restlessness.

A strange tranquillity was stealing over her, slowly leeching away the rawness of her throbbing heart. For the first time in a long time, it really felt like everything would truly be alright. Katara smiled as she stretched, curling her bare toes into Appa’s fur, the soft fuzz soothing her battle sores. Maximum comfort indeed.

Zuko had crawled onto his own spread beside her, laying down on his back, golden eyes glinting in the semi-darkness shrouding them. She nudged him with her foot and gestured him to mirror her position, to take advantage of the fuzzy-fur-foot-feels. He raised a dubious eyebrow at her so she raised a challenging eyebrow back. They had a short eyebrow-raising battle. He lost, sighing as he poked his own feet out of his bag and shoved them into Appa’s fur. She couldn’t help but smile victoriously when he immediately let out a long happy exhale. The silence felt too sacred to ruin with gloating though, so she kept it to herself.

They lay side-by-side in the shadows, sides pressed flush together from shoulders to hips. Katara felt the last vestiges of tension seep out of her muscles, reassured by the feel of him beside her in the darkness. The rhythm of his deepening breath lulled her to sleep, rendered her drowsy enough that she didn’t notice her barely-conscious hand seeking his out under the covers. Nor did she notice his doing the same.

All Katara knew was that, even in sleep, she didn’t have to face the nightmares alone that night.

*** 

There might only be a hollow brush where Kya had once bloomed, but her mom had always said that Katara had a heart big enough for a whole garden to grow.


End file.
